Roy Thomas
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| Roy Thomas | |
 |
|
| Born | November 22, 1940 Missouri |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Writer, Editor |
Roy Thomas (born November 22, 1940,[1] Missouri, United States) is a comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E. Howard's character and helped launch a sword and sorcery trend in comics. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and career
As a child, Thomas was a devoted comic book fan, and in grade school he wrote and drew his own comics for distribution to friends and family. The first of these was All-Giant Comics, which he recalls as having featured such characters as Elephant Giant.[2] He graduated from college in 1961, having majored in history and social science, and then worked for four years as a teacher.
Thomas became an early and active member of Silver Age comic book fandom when it organized in the early 1960s — primarily around Dr. Jerry Bails, whose enthusiasm for the rebirth of superhero comics during that period led Bails to found the fanzine Alter Ego, an early focal point of fandom. Thomas, then a high school English teacher, was an enthusiastic contributor to AE, and took over as editor in 1964 when Bails moved on to other pursuits. Letters from him appeared regularly in the letters pages of both DC and Marvel Comics.
In 1965, Thomas came to New York City to take a job at DC Comics, as assistant to Mort Weisinger, then the editor of the Superman titles. "I'd already written a Jimmy Olsen script a few months before, while still living and teaching in the St. Louis area," Thomas recalled. "I worked at DC for eight days in late June and very early July of 1965"[3] before accepting a job at Marvel Comics:
| “ | I was hired after taking [Stan Lee's] ' writer's test', and my first official job title at Marvel was 'staff writer'. I wasn't hired as an editor or assistant editor. I was supposed to come in 40 hours a week and write scripts on staff. ... I sat at this corrugated metal desk with a typewriter in a small office with production manager Sol Brodsky and corresponding secretary Flo Steinberg. Everybody who came up to Marvel wound up there, and the phone was constantly ringing, with conversations going on all around me. ... Almost at once, even though Stan proofed all the finished stories, he and Sol started having me check the corrections before they went out, and that would break up my concentration still further. ... [and] they kept asking me to do this or that, or questions like in which issue something happened, or Stan would come in to check something, because I knew a lot about Marvel continuity up to that time. ... It quickly became apparent to them, too, that the staff writer thing wasn't working, and Stan segued me over to being an editorial assistant, which immediately worked out better for all concerned".[4] | ” |
[edit] Marvel Comics
[edit] Breaking in
To that point, editor-in-chief Lee had been the main scripter of Marvel publications, with his brother, Larry Lieber, picking up the slack as a sometime-scripter of Lee-plotted stories. Thomas soon became the first new Marvel writer to sustain a presence, at a time when comics veterans such as Robert Bernstein, Ernie Hart, Leon Lazarus and Don Rico, and fellow newcomers Steve Skeates (hired a couple of weeks earlier) and Dennis O'Neil (brought in at Thomas' recommendation a few months later), did not.
His inauspicious Marvel debut was the romantic-adventure story "Whom Can I Turn To?" in the Millie the Model spin-off Modeling with Millie #44 (Dec. 1965) — for which the credits and the logo were inadvertently left off due to a production glitch, resulting in this being left off most credit lists.[5] Thomas' first Marvel superhero scripting was "My Life for Yours", the "Iron Man" feature in Tales of Suspense #73 (Jan. 1966), working from a Lee plot as well as a plot assist from secretary Steinberg. Thomas estimates that Lee rewrote approximately half of that fledgling attempt.
Thomas' earliest Marvel work also included the teen-romance title Patsy and Hedy #104-105 (Feb.-April 1966), and two "Doctor Strange" stories, plotted by Lee and Steve Ditko, in Strange Tales #143-144 (April-May 1966). Two previously written freelance stories for Charlton Comics also saw print: "The Second Trojan War" in Son of Vulcan #50 (Jan. 1966) and "The Eye of Horus" in Blue Beetle #54 (March 1966). "When Stan saw the couple of Charlton stories I'd written earlier in more of a Gardner Fox style, he wasn't too impressed", Thomas recalled. "It's probably a good thing I already had my job at Marvel at that point! I think I was the right person in the right place at the right time, but there are other people who, had they been there, might have been just as right".[6]
[edit] From sergeants to superheroes
Thomas took on what would be his first long-term Marvel title, the World War II series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, starting with #29 (April 1966) and continuing through #41 (April 1967) and the series' 1966 annual, Sgt. Fury Special #2. He also began writing the mutant-superteam title (Uncanny) X-Men from #20-42 (May 1966 - March 1968), and, finally, took over The Avengers, starting with #35 (Dec. 1966), and continuing until 1972. That notable run was marked by a strong sense of continuity, and stories that ranged from the personal to the cosmic — the latter most prominently with the Kree-Skrull War in issues #89-97 (June 1971 - March 1972).
Thomas, who had turned over X-Men to other writers, returned with issue #56 (May 1969) when the series was on the verge of cancellation. While efforts to save it failed — the title ended its initial run with #66 — Thomas' collaboration with artist Neal Adams through #63 (Dec. 1969) is regarded as a Silver Age creative highlight. In 1971, with Stan Lee and Gerry Conway, Thomas created Man-Thing and wrote the first Man-Thing story in color comics, after Conway and Len Wein introduced the character in the black-and-white comics magazine Savage Tales.
[edit] Editor-in-chief
In 1972, when Lee became Marvel's publisher, Thomas succeeded him as editor-in-chief. Thomas by this time had already launched Conan the Barbarian, an initially low-selling surprise success due to Thomas' accessible adaptations and original stories, combined with the detailed, Beaux Arts-inspired illustrations of Barry Windsor-Smith. Thomas, who stepped down from his editorship in August 1974, wrote hundreds of Conan stories in a host of Marvel comics and black-and-white magazines. During that time, he and Smith created Red Sonja.
He also continued to script mainstream titles, including Marvel's flagships, The Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man. He launched such new titles as the unusual "non-team" series The Defenders, as well as What If, a title that explored alternate histories. In addition, he indulged his love of Golden Age comic-book heroes in the World War II superhero book The Invaders. Thomas also helped create such new characters as Iron Fist, Brother Voodoo and the motorcycle-driving Ghost Rider; had a behind-the-scenes role in creating the revamped X-Men that would emerge as an eventual blockbuster; and was instrumental in engineering Marvel's comic-book adaptation of the movie Star Wars, without which, 1980s editor Jim Shooter believed, "[W]e would have gone out of business".[7]
[edit] DC Comics and later career
In 1981, after several years of freelancing for Marvel and a dispute with then editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, Thomas signed a three-year exclusivity writing/editing contract with DC. There he began scripting Wonder Woman and, with artist Gene Colan, updated the character's costume. He also created the sword-and-sorcery series Arak, Son of Thunder and the funny animal comic Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew.
Thomas realized a childhood dream in writing for the Justice Society of America (JSA). Reviving the Golden Age group in Justice League of America #193 and continuing in All-Star Squadron, he wrote retro adventures, like those of The Invaders, set in World War II. In addition to the JSA's high-profile heroes, Thomas also revived such characters as Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, the Shining Knight, Robotman, Firebrand, the Tarantula, and Neptune Perkins. He also addressed the complicated and sometimes contradictory continuity issues surrounding the JSA.
Thomas and All-Star Squadron artist Jerry Ordway also launched a JSA spin-off, Infinity Inc., set in the present day and depicting the adventures of the JSA's children.
By 1985, following a second three-year contract, and Jim Shooter's departure from Marvel Comics, Thomas returned to Marvel, scripting titles starring Doctor Strange, Thor, the West Coast Avengers, and Conan, now often co-scripting with his wife, Dann Thomas, or with Jean-Marc Lofficier.
During the 1990s, Thomas began working less for Marvel and DC than for independent companies. He wrote issues of the TV-series tie-ins Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys for Topps Comics, and collaborated on an adaptation of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle with Gil Kane. He also began writing more for other media, including television, and relaunched Alter Ego as a formal magazine in 1998. As of 2006, he lives in South Carolina, and is co-chairman of the board of directors of the comic-book industry charity The Hero Initiative.
Anthem, a comic book series by Thomas and artists Daniel Acuña and Jorge Santamaria Garcia, about World War II superheroes in an alternate reality, began publication by Heroic Publishing in January 2006. Thomas returned to Red Sonja in 2006, writing the one-shot Red Sonja Monster Island for Dynamite Comics.[8] In 2007 Thomas wrote a Black Knight story for the four-issue miniseries, Mystic Arcana, his first work at his old company in several years.
[edit] Awards
Thomas won the 1969 Alley Award for Best Writer. He later won the 1971 Shazam Award for Best Writer (Dramatic Division), followed by a 1973 Shazam for Best Individual Story ("Song of Red Sonja", with artist Barry Smith, in Conan the Barbarian #24), and a 1974 Shazam for Superior Achievement by an Individual.
[edit] Quotes
Roy Thomas: "I love comics, but I always considered them, even now, a lower form of literature than some others, and so, I felt even doing pulp stories and science-fiction elevates comics to some extent."[9]
John Romita on being offered Marvel's editor-in-chief position: "I think that was just after you [Roy Thomas, the interviewer] quit [in 1974]. But I'd seen what the job did to you — you didn't have any time to be creative. You just had to come in and put out fires every day".[10]
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Comics Buyers Guide #1636 (December 2007) p. 135
- ^ The Avengers Annual #1 (1967), biographical text page
- ^ Alter Ego Vol. 3, #50 (July 2005): " 'Roy the Boy' in the Marvel Age of Comics" (interview), p. 4
- ^ Alter Ego vol. 3, #50, pp. 4-5
- ^ Alter Ego vol. 3, #50, p. 8
- ^ Alter Ego vol. 3, #50, pp. 9-10
- ^ Comic Book Resources (Oct. 6, 2000): Jim Shooter Interview, Part 1: "We had been losing money for several years in the publishing. And y'know, actually a lot of credit should go to Roy Thomas, who — kicking and screaming —had dragged Marvel into doing Star Wars. If we hadn't done Star Wars — what was that, '77? — well, we would have gone out of business".
- ^ Newsarama article on Mystic Arcana.
- ^ Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001): "Son of Stan: Roy's Years of Horror" (Roy Thomas interview on 1970s horror comics)
- ^ Alter Ego vol. 3, #9 (July 2001): "Fifty Years on the 'A' List" (John Romita interview), p. 35
[edit] References
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief 1972–1974 |
Succeeded by Len Wein |
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
Avengers writer 1966–1972 |
Succeeded by Steve Englehart |
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
(Uncanny) X-Men writer 1966–1968 |
Succeeded by Gary Friedrich |
| Preceded by Arnold Drake |
(Uncanny) X-Men writer 1969–1970 |
Succeeded by Chris Claremont |
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
Daredevil writer 1969–1970 |
Succeeded by Gerry Conway |
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
Incredible Hulk writer 1970–1972 |
Succeeded by Archie Goodwin |
| Preceded by ' |
Conan the Barbarian writer 1970–1980 |
Succeeded by J.M. DeMatteis |
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
Amazing Spider-Man writer 1971–1972 |
Succeeded by Stan Lee |
| Preceded by Steve Englehart |
Incredible Hulk writer 1974 (with Gerry Conway) |
Succeeded by Len Wein |
| Preceded by Stan Lee |
Fantastic Four writer 1972–1973 |
Succeeded by Gerry Conway |
| Preceded by Gerry Conway |
Fantastic Four writer 1975–1977 |
Succeeded by Len Wein |
| Preceded by Len Wein |
Thor writer 1978–1980 |
Succeeded by Mark Gruenwald & Ralph Macchio |
| Preceded by Ron Marz |
Thor writer 1994–1995 |
Succeeded by Warren Ellis |
| Preceded by Len Wein |
Man-Thing writer 1972 |
Succeeded by Gerry Conway |
| Preceded by Jack Kirby |
Captain America writer 1977 |
Succeeded by Don Glut |
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